


Northern Legends

by PatchworkIdeas



Series: GatheringFiKi's 12 Days of Christmas 2020 [3]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Not Related, M/M, Magic, Romance, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:08:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28050657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatchworkIdeas/pseuds/PatchworkIdeas
Summary: Even Spirits have beginnings.
Relationships: Fíli/Kíli (Tolkien)
Series: GatheringFiKi's 12 Days of Christmas 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2054739
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14
Collections: GatheringFiKi - 12 Days Of Christmas 2020





	Northern Legends

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by GatheringFiKi's gorgeous Photoset!❤️
> 
> Shown here with permission, and the original post can be found on [Tumblr.](https://gatheringfiki.tumblr.com/post/637407203796582400/12-days-of-christmas-2020-day-1-stories)

* * *

Kili used to be mortal. A long, long time ago.  
People still remembered him, as the kind spirit that brought them medicine and food in the worst storms, no challenge too dangerous for him and his reindeer sled if a life hung in the balance.

As much as how they were celebrating him these days had little to do with who he had actually been.

“But they remember you, and all the joy and life you brought them.”

Fili. His fellow spirit, the one who had made his legend possible and made sure he would live on.  
His other half, as much as no human ever knew about him or bothered to remember him.  
He was beautiful, the most beautiful sight in the world, but none would ever realize he wasn’t just a pretty view up in the night sky.

None but Kili.

He had been young when he first met Fili. Out and about where he shouldn’t have been. But the pretty lights had been mesmerizing, and the cold didn’t matter in comparison to the wonder of the night sky, lit up in impossible colors.

It wasn’t the first time he saw the northern lights of course - he grew up in the north - but every time his parents would pull him inside and bundle him under covers, for the cold was a horrible monster indeed.

Kili disagreed.

Nothing could harm him as long as those lights shone in the sky, guide and wonder and indescribable no matter how often he watched them longingly from behind frosted windows.

It only took a moment of distraction for him to slip out and disappear into the cold, it’s danger meaningless compared to the endless lights in the sky.

He had only meant to walk to the open field to the south, where their animals grazed during the short summer months.

But that wasn’t where he found himself.

Instead of snow all around, reflecting the beautiful lights and embracing him with their beauty, he was in an icy cavern, lit up in the most wonderful of colors. Shifting and changing, Kili had no word for the beauty he saw.

Nor, for the beauty of the one with him. 

Hair as golden as the sun and yet shining softly like the moon, skin as white as untouched snow, glittering in the changing lights, and eyes bluer than the sky and the sea and the ice, mesmerizing, enchanting.

Kili felt that if one single being on the whole planet might be more beautiful than the lights in the sky, then it would be this one.

Perhaps that was why he was not surprised when he realized that the pretty lights reflected by the ice were coming from within, from _him_ , rather than from outside.

“Who are you?” Kili whispered, reverent, too in awe for fear.

“I am many things, and carry many names. Will you give me the honor of yours first, who so faithfully loved me all his days?”

“...Kili. My name is Kili,” he whispered, heart full and warm and wishing he could touch this being of light and beauty, but not daring to reach out lest it turned out to be a dream.

“Kili…” the name sounded like fine wine on those soft lips. “Call me Fili then, for I am yours, as you are mine.” And when Kili was too stunned for words, he added. “That is your wish, is it not?”

Kili’s affirmation fell like a prayer from his lips and the smile he was granted warmed him more than the sun ever could.

-

Kili felt like he stayed for hours or days or just seconds when he woke up in his bed, his parents frantic and fearful.

Missing for weeks, they said. They had expected to find him dead, frozen through. And yet he had been peacefully slumbering in front of their door this morning, not even cold.

When they asked him where he had been, he couldn't answer.

He remembered Fili, fiercely, crystal clear, but he knew without a doubt that what he had experienced, who he had met, was only meant for him. 

His parents couldn't understand why he was grieving at being returned, mistook his longing for shock.

Summer came, those endless short months where the sun and moon were the only lights in the sky, and Kili longed and yearned for something, someone, whose name he didn't dare to speak out loud. 

It was a relief when summer’s fleeting warmth faded, replaced by a cold that did not bite anymore, and he sneaked out at the first light - not of dawn, but of Fili.

“You’re back!”

“I never left, and never will. Your eyes just cannot see me without my lights in the sky. So no more tears my love, we will never be apart.”

And they weren’t.

Words spoken like prayers, with answers on the wind.  
Long nights spend out in the darkness, surrounded by ice and snow and endless winter, and yet warmer than he had ever been.

And when the call went out, full of desperation, for a family that needed medicine - the storms too strong, too cold for anyone to reach them - Kili sneaked out and delivered it.

The winds parted around him, little more than a loving caress, the snow warmed him, like the feather-light touch of a loved one.  
Fili’s light guided him even through the clouds, his love too strong to be hidden, and not one moment did Kili walk alone.

He never would.

The family had been saved. A miracle, they said.

Far from the last he would perform, for never had he felt more at home than during that journey. 

The sled had been a gift from his parents, once they realized his calling - or what they believed it to be. 

Sometimes Kili thought it was funny that said sled and the reindeer that pulled it were better remembered than he.

“If anyone should be remembered it’s you. None of it would have been possible if you hadn’t reached out to me, if we hadn’t met. I wish I could show the whole world how wonderful you are.”

“Kili, my love, I do not need the world. Let them admire my lights and move on, never knowing what they see. I have you, the one who loves me more than any ever has or ever could. I do not need anyone else. Just you and me, forever.”

And they had and would have that, no matter who believed or remembered. In the end, the joy they brought other’s was only a pale shadow of the joy and happiness they brought each other.


End file.
